Catch

21 Ninth Ave. (212-392-5978)

Why have one hostess when you can have four? At Catch, a typically cavernous restaurant in the meatpacking district—surely the only neighborhood in New York where you wish the restaurants would take up a little less space—the answer is that more is always more. Hence the velvet rope and two bouncers on the way in, the juiced-up samba version of “Move on Up” playing inside, the twenty-five-dollar tequila cocktail, and the grab-bag menu of dishes from around the world, governed by the principle that most, though not all, of it should be seafood.

Spinning on the lazy Susan at any given point, there might be the Italian-American classic cioppino stew (thick with tomato pulp but served in a stingy shallow bowl), some sushi rolls (including a dried-coconut-encrusted Zulu roll), a chunk of “simply cooked” salmon or mahi-mahi (served à la carte, with the sauce, naturally, on the side), and, with any luck, a crispy whole snapper (done in the traditional Thai style, curved in on itself and covered in chili and garlic). It’s the best thing on the menu, but it’s also seventy-two dollars.

For those without expense accounts, simpler pleasures are hard to find. The hot, soft pretzels with honey-mustard butter don’t have a lot to do with seafood, but no one will complain. On the appetizer menu, there are some spicy tuna rice cakes that are appropriately crispy on the bottom and satisfyingly laborious for the jaw muscles, like good pizza crust, or nougat. Hamachi tartare with pear and potato chips works better than expected; in fact, this cleanest of fish provides a neat staging ground for the delightfully weird intermingling of salty and sweet, crunchy and mushy. The high-low dessert offerings sound like they should be cheap, but they aren’t, of course. The big draw of the cookie bucket is the fried Oreo, which doesn’t really taste like anything, except maybe tempura. The s’mores pizza is heavy on the cinnamon and comes with a little tub of burnt-marshmallow ice cream, from which you’re instructed to scoop your own. It’s diverting, though not delicious, and, like the over-all dining experience, feels dated, and a little too determinedly “downtown.” (Open every night for dinner. Entrées $26-$90.) ♦